When will Ravens become Tuckered out by these 16 massage therapist allegations? - Baltimore Positive

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The Justin Tucker scandal has continued as seven more women have come forward to The Baltimore Banner to accuse the longtime Ravens’ kicker of inappropriate conduct during local massages a decade ago. Luke Jones and Nestor discuss the now-16 female massage therapists’ claims vs. the word of Justin Tucker – and attacking the journalists – and what the Baltimore Ravens are gonna do about it. And when…



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Nestor Aparicio and Luke Jones discussed the ongoing controversy surrounding Baltimore Ravens kicker Justin Tucker, who is accused by 16 massage therapists of inappropriate behavior. The Ravens have not made any public statements since January 30, despite the increasing number of accusers. Nestor criticized the team’s handling of the situation, comparing it to their past mishandling of Ray Rice. Luke noted the financial implications of cutting Tucker, emphasizing the need for a post-June 1 designation to manage the salary cap. They also discussed the potential impact on Tucker’s career and the league’s response, with Nestor predicting Tucker would find another team despite the allegations.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Maryland crab cake tour, Super Bowl recap, Justin Tucker allegations, Ravens response, massage therapists, legal implications, public opinion, team silence, fan reaction, performance concerns, salary cap, post-June 1 cut, league discipline, future prospects, media coverage

SPEAKERS

Luke Jones, Nestor Aparicio

Nestor Aparicio 00:00

Uh, welcome home. We are W, N, S, T. Am 1570 to house of Baltimore. We are Baltimore. Positive. This might not be a real positive piece here, to start a cold winters week. Here Luke Jones about to join us. I would tell you about the Maryland crab cake tour. We had another cancelation last week with weather up at libs grill in Bel Air. We’re going to get the thing back on the road. We’re going to be at fade Lee’s on March the sixth. That is our next Maryland crab cake tour, presented by the Maryland lottery. I will have the monopoly scratch offs as well as magic eight ball scratch offs. So I want to get that out of the way as we get going here, and also this week, if you hear some cool conversations of recent times, in the last year or two, for crab cake tours, educational pieces, Baltimore pieces, cool pieces, just all sorts of stuff, from, I don’t know, Gina shock and Mark Viviano to anything regarding life and sports in the big city, you’ll hear it here this week, including a cup of soup or bowl. Luke Jones is here, dude, we haven’t got together in a week, right? I mean, Super Bowl was terrible game unless you lived in Philadelphia. Hats off to your brother in law and everybody else that likes the Eagles. Yeah. I mean, better than than the commanders, I guess the Maryland commanders. But the Tucker thing, it was quiet for a while, and it’s was so quiet that I almost text my people over at the banner and said, All right, just give me a 15 minute warning on this so I know the next time this thing. Because you just, you know where these stories go, and then you know where the audience goes. It’s a cash grab. It’s not a cash grab. There’s, there’s probably not going to be any lawsuit in any of this from every lawyer I’ve talked to. I’m writing a column on this, but honestly, I wanted to talk to you to start our week before I ink my column, because this the depth of this thing from society and women and massage and lawyers and legal and Chad Steele and the Ravens and Steve Bucha and Ray Rice And the Hall of Fame and the in all of it, it like they all wanted to go away, and it’s February, and they’re not let you in the building this week, and you and I would have to fly off to Indianapolis and find a coffee shop and run around and chase down the Costa, which I tried last year down in Florida, in order to convene them. But at some point they’re going to have to come out of their den cavern, cave hole, and address this. Yeah. I

Luke Jones 02:30

mean, the last time we’ve heard from the Ravens on this was a statement on january 30, when the original report came out, and was what six massage therapists at that point in time, the statement was, we are aware of the Baltimore banner story regarding Justin Tucker. We take any allegations of this nature seriously, and we’ll continue to monitor the situation. It’s literally all we’ve heard from the ravens, and that’s

Nestor Aparicio 02:53

a cut and taste, yeah, and it’s very and

Luke Jones 02:57

in fairness to them, that’s any team in the league. The initial reaction to a story of that nature is going to be something very similar.

Nestor Aparicio 03:05

Well, came at a great time this story for them. Anybody thinking that this thing planted by the rave, I mean, all the conjecture that’s out there, this is the best time in the in the world for them to have this happen. It’s quiet. It goes away, the baseball teams playing, look over there. Saturday Night Live, look over there with Trump. Did today like there’s a there’s a whole, yeah, Terps won by 30 the other night. There’s a whole way to whitewash this and have the general manager and the coach run off to Indianapolis next week and hide. And they don’t have to do anything, so they’re not gonna

Luke Jones 03:38

well. And I mean, in theory, I guess you can approach it that way if you want to. But as I was thinking about this, and full disclosure, when the story came out, I was at worship service at church, right? I mean, I didn’t see it until an hour and a half after the links were tweeted out. And the first thing that came to mind is, and we’ve talked, we talked about this when it was the six initial massage therapists with the accusations that were reported in the banner. And then what that Sunday? So it was two or three days later, three more. So it was up to nine. We talked about this at that point in time, if you’re looking at it from the organization’s perspective, what’s the threshold here that anything’s okay and you’re going to proceed, or you’re going to say, All right, that’s enough. We have to move on here. I mean, what’s the number, right? What? What has to happen one way or the other? Because at the end of the day, your player has, you know, put out this lengthy statement, denying everything, calling it tabloid fodder, right, all the everything that

Nestor Aparicio 04:51

was just deny it, right? Fingers a journalist, and called journalist liars, and he called these women liars. And he called their bosses liars, and he called their lawyers liars. So just get on the record with that. So. So if you’re

Luke Jones 05:07

the organization at some point in time, you know the silence and him continuing to be employed by you is, is you know whether you want to say it, state it this plainly or not. Is we believe our guy and the 16 women are lying, right? I mean, it’s not. And you can’t just say, well, it’s about statute of limitations. Oh, this was through 2012 through 2016 your player has denied it, right? This isn’t, you know? Well, I don’t agree with the way some of this is worded. I made some mistakes. I was young. I was immature. You know, there’s nothing along those lines where you could even make, you know, from the organization standpoint, where you can make an argument that, you know, this is not the same individual that was the 22 year old who was doing or the 24 year old is right. So I guess for me, if you’re letting this play out, and obviously they’re letting it play out to some degree or another, right? And I’ve heard some people make mention, well, he’s going to be you know, if they’re going to release him, it’d be a post June 1 cut. Well, you can announce releases ahead of time. I mean it. You can announce intentions to trade a player. You can announce a player is going to be released, and then it’s not processed until March 12, or March

Nestor Aparicio 06:25

Chad Steele, if they had real leadership out there, and they had their their act together like literally weren’t throwing media members out while and honoring Ray Rice, and just all the what they do out there and the way they conduct themselves in a general sense of arrogance and invincibility. They’ll move on from this. They’re gonna cut his ass, and that’s good, and they’re gonna run from this, and they’re gonna pretend that never I mean, that’s not a prediction that is based on all the history we’ve seen about all of this, but the way they could deal with this is to send, you know, their high paid spokesman, that handsome man, um, they could just put a one sentence out our it is our intention to cut Justin Tucker and move on. We’ll, we’ll address this more in the future, like they could be, literally, they could send that out at 10am today, 484, pm on Friday, whenever they want to do it, whenever it’s convenient for them, in the middle of the snowstorm, Thursday morning, whatever. And just one sentence, b, a, l, would go with it. Everybody, go with it. There’d be no press conference. And Rebecca and Hensley be running around out in Indianapolis next week. And, you know, Erica shrug his shoulders and just do whatever he’s going to do next week. I’m week, um, and they’ll say whatever they’re going to say, and they’ll draft a kicker, and it’ll just be a thing that happened that nobody knew about.

07:52

But right?

Nestor Aparicio 07:55

Isn’t that the playbook? Then I just give you the playbook. But, but

Luke Jones 07:58

why wait? Why wait then, right? I mean, and okay, I can understand, you know, if, if we’re to humor that storyline that they didn’t know, right? Let’s just humor that possibility for the moment. You know, at what point in time again, this goes back to what I said in terms of asking, what’s the threshold here, right

Nestor Aparicio 08:21

in themselves and twisting themselves. That’s, that’s the part that’s really getting crazy after Ray Rice and after the issue, they’ve done to me personally, and I’ve sat here for 40 years and documented everything. So I’m not, you know, I’m not part of the story, but Mark Andrews running off the podium three weeks ago, just all of it in a very, very general sense, in how their brand and their communications is poorly managed all the way around, just all the way around. This is indicative of the arrogance of all of it. Is just that wait a little while and it’ll go away. There’ll be another there’ll be just something that makes it they want it to go away and the bit, by the way, that that first banner story said that one of the team, Tucker people, said the Ravens that will supply massage therapists names This that of how legitimate Justin. I haven’t seen any massage therapist running to the banner to say, Justin, like that. There was going to be that, that the that, the that the defense part of Team Tucker was No, no, no, we, you know, the Ravens haven’t said anything. So they haven’t touched this either. The Ravens aren’t responding to the banner, and so anybody that was in on this theory that, like the Ravens blew the whistle. I mean, none of that, none of the conspiracy stuff makes sense. You know what I believe, Luke, I believe the journalism. That’s where I am. I’m gonna go with the journalists in this. Well,

Luke Jones 10:00

I I mean, you have 16 massage therapists with accusations that are strikingly similar, right? I mean, these are all very, very similar. It’d be one thing if these accounts were all over the place, if the behavior was all over the place, if, if something kind of didn’t jive with what other accounts were saying. But you’re not seeing that, right? It’s a very consistent pattern of behavior, I guess, with some of the new accusations. There was, you know, talk about him staring intently, uh, but beyond that, all these sound very, and I don’t say this to be dismissive about it, very cookie cutter in terms of one to the other, right? I mean, these sound very similar in nature, in terms of the accused inappropriate behavior. So again, for me, it goes back to from the organization’s perspective. What are you waiting on here? Like, to your point, you’re not seeing this public outcry of people coming to his defense. You know, again, we’re talking about something that was a long time ago, noted doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Let’s, let’s be clear about that. Just because something happened a long time ago doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. You know that the Ray Rice thing happened in a public place, right? It happened in a casino. There were cameras. I don’t think any of this was subject to surveillance video, right? I mean, I, you know, again, I, I plead ignorance, not knowing a whole lot about

Nestor Aparicio 11:31

I think the thing that would be surveyed is that if you went to nine different massage places, and all of them told you never to come back again,

Luke Jones 11:41

or, you know, whatever the number is. I mean, in

Nestor Aparicio 11:44

one city. I mean, lord knows if he went to get a massage in DC or Philly, or, you know, on vacation, like, I don’t know, but this is insane. I mean, I and I guess that not just celebrity and money and fame and skirting it is that when you get thrown out of one there’s not a, like, a child predator list of massage predator like, how many massage places could you be banned from in one city? I mean, it’s insane. It’s disturbing. It’s disturbing.

Luke Jones 12:16

I mean, I keep coming back to, you know, the the numbers not getting smaller, right? The the numbers only has only gotten bigger. I mean, it’s more than doubled since the initial report, right? We’ve gone from six to nine to 16 now. So we’re

Nestor Aparicio 12:30

saying these women are coming out, looking for money. The statute limitations is gone. Like I’ve talked to three lawyers this weekend at length, and all of them sort of sang the same song of if he would have issued a release the day it happened, had a press conference, brought his wife, looked apologetic, apologized into a camera, like done all the acting he’s been, he’s been the acting school. I’ve oil palms, coffee, yeah, he’s not all just apologize at say I was a jerk, and we’re a forgiving society. Donald Trump is running the country after leading an insurrection. People forgive people here, but this thing of going after the journalist and digging in and Chad Steele hiding and Bucha off on his boat and Team No speaky, and nobody’s speaking and sitting now 16, and they’re pissed at the journalists, and I put it on my Facebook, and people are so dumb that they think it’s my report and I’m spreading rumors. Yeah, it speaks to you. And I having a different intellect about this, doing it every day, our audience, hopefully here, at least on the radio, on the web, having a different intellect about what we consider to be journalism around here, and why Chad Steele doesn’t want me in the building and people like me in the building. And I never heard about any of this, but man, oh, man, oh man, there ain’t no place I go in this city. I was on a bar stool that cost us on set. My wife and I decided got to get dinner at a cost of Saturday, like somehow I thought we’re going to sneak thought we’re gonna sneak in. I haven’t shaved, as you can see, I sat on a bar still. Guy next to me, he’s talking to me and how I love this. He told me. He told hey, man, I got your book. I’m like, Do you like it? I didn’t read it. Guy behind me sold me my carpet, uh, Steve from over, Jim Boyd and you know, and then across the way was a guy who’s your age, who was a kid, and my friend Dave Miller, who’s now, like 41 and we’re laughing about eating shrimp salad. And all three of them, Justin Tucker, Justin Tucker, and they all had an opinion. None of them read the journalism. Three weeks later, they all wanted to know what I thought without reading the pieces. I don’t know what to say, Dude, I don’t I really. I don’t know how to help those people really navigate the planet. You know, at a time when the Constitution is being taken away, I. And also just to navigate facts, details, law, legal. The women are screaming for money. No, they’re not. No, they’re not. That’s just dumb. Sorry, I don’t I don’t have any I I’ve got to start calling dumb stuff dumb as wear my blunt person shirt. I just need to in 2025 that I can’t deal with the stupidity

Luke Jones 15:24

Well, I mean, I I think a lot of this goes back to whether we’re talking about an athlete, whether we’re talking about a celebrity in Hollywood, whatever you know, any public figure. I think there’s, especially if it’s a beloved public figure. I think there’s a natural tendency with some to try to differentiate between what you’ve known that individual to be in terms of their excellence on the field or in Hollywood or in music, or whatever it might be, because, because that’s how you know, though, that person, right? Most, most people that are, you know, taking that stance with Justin Tucker don’t know him at all personally. They know him because he makes kicks, or back in October, November, when he wasn’t making kicks, and you heard a lot of really nasty stuff towards Justin Tucker that had nothing to do with off the field. It was all about his failure and ability to do his job adequately, so, but

Nestor Aparicio 16:22

he also worked really hard to build a brand around singing and his acting and

Luke Jones 16:28

his out in the same way that people really liked Ray Rice,

Nestor Aparicio 16:32

yeah, so, so look,

Luke Jones 16:34

I’m it’s not my place to question someone’s intelligence or, you know, people are going to have opinions about something regardless of what information is out there. I think our society, I don’t know

Nestor Aparicio 16:45

what the word is when you have an opinion on something and you have no facts, I don’t know. I don’t. I don’t know what to call that. I really don’t. I mean, I don’t. Again, you

Luke Jones 16:54

can comment on that, but again, for me, it’s looking at it from the team’s perspective. The longer you say nothing on this, the silence just becomes that much more deafening. And I mean, if the plan is to really to just wait this out, and Justin Tucker is going to continue to be employed, I mean, that’s a that’s quite a message you’re sending to your fan base, and specifically to the female segment of your fan base, which isn’t inconsequential here. Mind you, when you look at the NFL and breakdowns as far as what percentage of NFL fan bases are female in this day and age, right? I mean, it’s not like it was 50 years ago.

Nestor Aparicio 17:32

But there’s also the innocent until proven guilty part of this that I push back on for all of that to say, like, what do you do with that and and that, I guess, is where we get into this contractually. Let’s move off of this salacious part of this, and let’s move on to the pragmatic part of there’s a draft, there’s a there’s a combine. They the Costa and harbor are gonna have to come out and say something at some point. Bucha, he’s gonna run. Sashi Brown’s gonna run and hide. They’re actually having the owners meetings on opening day, so we’re not even going to be there stalking them this year for the owners meetings down at the breakers. But there’s a lot of football going on here, and I’m going to put this in the piece. Okay, at the end of the day, he sold some chicken. He sang some songs. He’s not going in the Hall of Fame. He’s not going in the Ring of Honor. He will kick in the league again. I had he’ll kick for another team. He’ll kick this year for another team. I’ll make that prediction. But like, through all of this, he’s just a freaking kicker, dude, and they’re gonna move on, and they’re gonna go get another kicker, and they’re gonna do that pronto. That’s part of the plan. Now, quickly they move on. He’s not coming back. You’re kicking for them, and dead cap number and all like what you know, this is a very from a football perspective, other than making kicks with the game on the line in Buffalo next January and figuring out who that’s going to be, it ain’t going to be him. And that’s an easy part of, I think, of the sports part of our analysis of their roster, right? Yeah, I hear that,

Luke Jones 18:59

but then I My question is, then, why wait? You know what I mean, like? I mean is there give him

Nestor Aparicio 19:06

the presumption of innocence that everybody gave him two and a half weeks ago, three weeks ago, right?

Luke Jones 19:11

I mean, I guess, dude, they went so far with Ray

Nestor Aparicio 19:15

Rice, win, wink, wink, wink, they never saw the video or really knew what happened. They told her to blame it on herself in front of the world on a cell phone, dude like, but Ray, we were even there that were you there that day? No, for the Ray Rice Jeanette, yeah, I was there. You were there that I never even asked you about. We never even discussed that, not even privately. Oh, we discussed it a decade ago. We just don’t remember it. I don’t think now we didn’t, because my wife was ill and I didn’t talk a lot about it, but because I was, I remember that period of time I was

Luke Jones 19:47

the point is I did. It was discussed plenty at the time, but see you bringing up Ray Rice is why I have doubt, until they actually do that, right? I but because, because of a lot of what you just said is, why? Why wouldn’t you, like, what’s going to change, right? I mean, are you just waiting for 16 women or, well, let’s just say 13 of them suddenly wake up and say, I wasn’t telling the truth. Justin Tucker didn’t do any of these. You know what I mean, like, is that what? Because, other than that, I mean to me, the longer you wait, I mean again, the sign i You saw it a ton on Sunday. And look, this is the court of public opinion, which that, that’s what this is about, right? Because, because of the statute of limitations, because of what you said, speaking to legal experts in terms of but you know, the silence is deafening, and the longer it goes on, the more I ask, like, what are you waiting for here and again? People can say, well, post June 1, you you can announce your intentions to move on from somebody ahead of time, right? I mean, we see that all the time. We’ve seen that with players that they the ravens, announced they were going to move on from that wasn’t an off field disgrace or controversy or anything like that, strictly about performance. We talked about this at the time that the the initial story came out. I mean, the Ravens have plenty of cover here, just to cut Justin Tucker from a performance standpoint, with the way that he kicked in 2024 so that that’s where I look at this and say, I don’t know. I’m not. I’m not going to make that assumption. I I think you’re right,

Nestor Aparicio 21:27

but I again, it’s a one sentence release this morning. Chad Steele, get your you’ll typewriter out, send it over to Patrick, or whoever sends these things out. One sentence, the Baltimore Ravens will move on from from Justin Tucker after June 1, or leak it to Adam Schefter or Rappaport, whatever you want to do it, yeah, and let me

Luke Jones 21:50

clarify, because you just said it, you can designate someone as a post June 1 cut and but you don’t have to wait till till June 2 anymore. All that is is an accounting measure where you release the player, and you know when you you can do that at the start of the league year for a post June 1 designation, they are gone. They they’re free to sign with anyone else. That cap space that you say by, by designating it that way, is on the books until June 2 then. So it’s not like, if you recall, Steve McNair was one of those weird post June 1, when the Ravens acquired him 20 years, 19 years ago at this point in time. So, so it’s not even about that. So that’s where I just look at this and say, I mean, I hear that. I hear everything you’re saying. I’m not saying you’re wrong. Nestor, I’m not, let me be clear. But I’m not 100% convinced of that, because waiting this out, and we’re talking now two and a half weeks going on, three weeks since the initial story came out. You know, the longer you wait, you’re you’re sending a message louder and louder that I think you don’t want to send, you know, to not just to these 16 women, but to anyone, women

Nestor Aparicio 23:04

all gathering in my studio on a stage and answering questions about this. How, in like, if these women were gathered together? Like, how you know this guy, Belsky and the lawyer, I haven’t reached any of them. I’ve done no journalism on this, because the banner is all over it, and it’s their story, and they should be their story, and kudos to them for having a the wherewithal to do it. You know, I wonder how their press credentials are going to go from old Chad this year. Hope, I hope they’re members of the Pro Football Writers Association. Luke Jones is my guest. I’m wearing my blunt person shirt, dude. We have talked, we talked to football, right? I mean, like, I tried to go do into talking about football, and you won’t do it.

Luke Jones 23:50

And let me just, let me just clear, clear up. Because we, we’ve made mention of a lot of post June 1. So what we’re when we are talking about that, I think most of, most of our audience has followed football enough to at least know or hear about what a pre June 1, first, post June 1. It has to do with accounting. It has to do with how money hits the salary cap as things stand right now, if the Ravens cut Justin Tucker without a a post June 1 designation that cap hit for because he’s under contract through 2027 as things stand right now, he’s got three years left on his deal. So he has three years left on his deal. If you were to cut him without that post June 1 designation, you would actually lose some cap, meaning there’d be a credit of almost $500,000 that would be added to the cap for this year, and you would have seven and a half million dollars in dead money on the salary cap. So it would be it’s prohibitive to cut him pre June 1, from a salary cap standpoint, if you do it post June 1. Basically, what that does is that allows you to break up the dead cap money in. Into some of that being this year, and then the rest of it being next year. So when you do a post June 1 designation, there would still be, yeah, I think it’s $2.8 million in dead money on the cap this year, but you would save $4.2 million

Nestor Aparicio 25:14

what if he has a $1 million roster bonus on April 1 or something? I don’t know about the contract part of that.

Luke Jones 25:19

Joel, I I could be wrong for the most part, these guys don’t

Nestor Aparicio 25:23

get paid in the off season. For the most part. I mean, it all

Luke Jones 25:26

depends. And one thing you do have to keep in mind is you do have, you know, Justin Tucker is someone that, in the past, has restructured his deal, because he’s been one of those players that you do that with right players, your your core players that are on long term contracts typically have base salaries built into their deal that are very easily transferred into a signing bonus. You give that player signing bonus, and then you’re able to lower their cap number for that the current league gear you get. You pay them in advance, basically, give them basically, basically, basically, so, so, you know, he’s someone that they’ve done that with in the past. I don’t, you know based, and I’m looking at over the over the cap.com which is the best salary cap resource league wide, that that’s out there, not perfect, but it’s really good. But I don’t, I’m not aware of, like, a roster bonus or anything like that. So, you know, this is pretty cut and dried in terms of, you know, if you’re going to cut them, it would be a post June 1, because you want to try to ease the salary cap burden as much as you can. Yeah, it’s going to be some dead money. There’d be some dead money next year as well. And that’s, that’s how it works. I mean,

Nestor Aparicio 26:35

$65 million kicking a football. He’s made a lot of money. He’s been

Luke Jones 26:39

really good at his job, right? I mean, and again, this goes back to, you know, going back to your commentary on people that are standing by Justin Tucker, fans that are standing by Justin Tucker, you know, when real life kicks in, right? We’re not talking no pun intended with kicking in, right, but you’re talking about someone who’s been beloved because of his public persona, because of what he’s done on a football field. And then when you have something like this that comes out that contrasts that in an alarming way, that’s that’s difficult for people. And you know that doesn’t mean I think that you know that he deserves undisputed support or anything like that. Let me be clear. But I can understand the struggles with

Nestor Aparicio 27:24

that. One way, receipt came on last week on cup of Super Bowl, and we’re six, you know, was in Buffalo during, OJ, Simpson all that. He’s like, I was the last one to believe that. OJ, you know, like, because you love, OJ, yeah, you know.

Luke Jones 27:37

And that’s where I want, and that’s where I do want to have some, some empathy for fans who just want to be fans, right? I mean, there are 10 year olds out there right now who love Justin Tucker, who, you know, whatever little bit maybe that their parents have exposed them to, or they’ve heard from their friends at recess, or whatever they’re they’re disappointed by this. They’re crushed by this. They don’t want to believe this, right? I mean, it the Ray Rice thing was very similar in in terms of what Ray Rice meant on the field, what he meant as very much a face of the franchise that met with corporate sponsors and did a lot of that. He did a lot of that stuff for him. And you know that he was on the face of their credit card,

Nestor Aparicio 28:18

M and T Bank calls. So,

Luke Jones 28:19

there’s, there’s a, you know, there’s, there’s a natural, you know, and receive, talking about OJ and buffalo is a great, I mean, obviously a much more, much more heinous act,

Nestor Aparicio 28:28

right? But you know that that’s an example concept of, he’s a star not capable of doing that,

Luke Jones 28:35

and that, you know the lesson again, and we’ve talked about this, and, you know, flower, you know what I mean, Cosby, we go on. It’s something that I really myself, just as a reporter, you know, as someone who talks about professional athletes for my livelihood. Have you know the Ray Rice thing? Try, you know, I tried to take the lesson of, you know, what little bit I’ve I’ve gotten to know Ray Rice or Justin Tucker in this case, or whomever is to tread carefully about making sweeping generalizations, good or bad. Let’s be clear about that as well, right? Let’s not make generalizations that are too negative, either or unfair in a negative direction, but to understand that, you know, when you’re talking about, you know, in the case of Ray Rice with a domestic violence incident, or in this case, where you’re talking about inappropriate sexual misconduct of you Know, of some sort, right, that you have people who do these kinds of things that their own closest friends, their own family members, aren’t aware of it. So when we’re talking about this as guys on the radio, media members, when we’re talking about this as fans, when you’re talking about this as an organization. Question when something like this comes out. You know whether you had heard conjecture and whispers and murmurs about it, or or, or more than that, in the past, you know that it’s a reminder that you never truly know someone 100% and that doesn’t mean we should be accusatory all the time, either. Let’s be clear. Let’s let’s not become so cynical that everyone’s a criminal and everyone’s a miscreant and everything you know, let’s not, let’s not go that far, but let’s also have some awareness to know that we don’t truly know people 100% so that’s where, when something like this comes out, we should take it seriously, because we don’t know. And you know, as much as you don’t want to convict someone in the court of public opinion, just like that, at the same time, you don’t want to exonerate someone in the court of public opinion, just like that. Because, you know, at the end of the day, as this story continues to grow to where it is, as we sit here presently, you’re saying Justin Tucker’s telling the truth, and 16 women are lying, you know, if you’re taking that approach, that stance right now, and the

Nestor Aparicio 31:05

journalists went out to find them to tell them, sure, so I’m not going to let that go, Luke. I mean, I’m not, because I just hear too much garbage from these Trumpers about all media lies. It’s insane that if the media reports it, it can’t be believed in some way, legitimate media, I like it’s destroying the country, but certainly for me, as my career and what I’ve tried to do here with this organization, after Ray Rice, you know, and again, we go back to them standing by Ray Lewis right like, when Ray Lewis got into this trouble, art flew down with we’re long past that that’ll never happen again. We’re a pro athlete and we’re an owner gets on the plane and says, That’s my guy, that I think we’re way past the point where that’ll ever happen again. Yeah, this franchise has had it all. Dude, you know, really, in a lot of ways, it’s had it all.

Luke Jones 32:05

No questions. So again, for me, what is the threshold here? What is the plan here? We haven’t heard from the team. To your point, the timing has been very convenient, from that standpoint, in terms of the team not having any requirement to be front facing in the way that when it happens during the season, John Harbaugh is required to talk to the media four times a week and and players are made available. You know, not, not that, not that the the Paramount thing here would be to ask his teammates about it. But for me, again, what’s the threshold here? You know, it was six, then it was up to nine, and now we’re at 16, at eight different spas slash massage therapy,

Nestor Aparicio 32:50

you know. And by the way, headquarters of Cleveland, and everybody’s asking, like, and the national perspective of black quarterback, Houston does these things. He gets smeared. Still gets two, $50 million but nobody he gets booed roundly, even in Cleveland. You know, where’s the Justin Tucker? Part of the fanfare around this as to what he will endure as and let’s be honest here, Justin Tucker, as of six weeks ago, was going to the Hall of Fame. He was going to, at some point, he was going to go to law Deshaun Watson, going nowhere but Justin Tucker. I don’t know what happens to him moving forward for his star, his money, but I don’t think he’s going to have to spend $20 million in a lawsuit out of court, because none of the lawyers I have met believe that to be the case on statutes of limitations, if anything were to come up in 2018 1920, 21 if that happens. Yeah, it’s all different can of worms, right? But like from a legal standpoint, for what the court of public opinion is going to do to him versus Watson. Now, Watson had he gone off into the sunset and never played again and not gotten a two, $50 million deal and became a backup quarterback in Detroit who was forgotten about. Maybe he wouldn’t be so reviled, certainly not by Steve Bucha, who had to negotiate with Lamar Jackson, based on what the idiot owner did in Cleveland. But the public sentiment and the fallout of this for what happened to Watson and Tucker, might be able to walk away from this on a national if he doesn’t want to kick anymore. Just wants to go home to Texas and count his money and just go away. I thought John rocker went away, and he came back last week, by the way, but like, just go away, he will have the opportunity to maybe do that. It’s not his personality. But I mean, I, I’m, I’m fascinated to see how this plays out for Justin Tucker the rest of the way, in a public sentiment way, because, you know, he’s now Deshaun Watson. We’ve had five, six years at Deshaun Watson. We’ve had two weeks of this. Yeah.

Luke Jones 34:57

I mean, this. Situations, while, while the allegations and all you know, putting all of that part of it aside. I mean, you’re talking about someone who’s a franchise quarterback now, Justin Tucker is not your average kicker, completely acknowledging that you’re talking about a multi Time Pro Bowl kicker, most accurate NFL history, all those different accolades, but the Watson thing you know, for it to be, you know, the the accusations that turned into a trade, a two, $30 million fully guaranteed unprecedented contract. What that meant, you know, an organization in the Cleveland Browns that not only accepted it, but embraced all of those accusations, right? I mean, that that was the message that was sent there. They they embraced that and said, we’re good with that. Take our two 30 million guaranteed. We don’t care about whether you’re a scum off the off the field or not. We need a quarterback, right? I mean, that was the message they conveyed with all of that, and we’re desperate to do it. So

Nestor Aparicio 35:57

Tucker’s gonna have to come out of the house at some point if he wants a job, right? Like,

Luke Jones 36:01

and he’s also not gonna, but he’s not gonna guarantee is he

Nestor Aparicio 36:05

gonna snap up and apologize to the journalist that he called liars and tabloid journalists? I want to be at that effing press conference in a chicken suit eating Western fries. Like, seriously. Like, I don’t know how he goes out and faces this up, but I do know if the Atlanta Falcons need a kicker, they’ll sign him. You know what? I mean, like somebody needs a kicker, he he might kick again. I mean, maybe I wouldn’t. I’m not ruling that out. I’m not ruling out that, that there will be no lawsuits that, like, I’ve been told that by lawyers that this is just going to be this dirty thing that lingers on and the Ravens are going to run from it. I guess the league would like to run from it, but the league would never blackball anybody named Colin Kaepernick. Would they know? They would never do that. So I don’t know how the league feels about signing a 35 year old kicker and putting him on the field as the accused, but he’s never going to step up, a man up and say he did this. I mean, I just, I can’t imagine that press conference well.

Luke Jones 37:09

I mean, you mentioned the league, and that’s where, you know, it is interesting to see whether there will be any discipline from the league. We know that there does not need to be, you know, charges or a criminal consequence. To this, we’ve seen that. I mean, Deshaun Watson was suspended, you know, for the number of games that he was despite, you know, criminal charges and all that, you know, not going anywhere. So, so from that standpoint, you know, I there’s interest there as far as what happens on that front but, you know, look, I’ve been doing this long enough and, you know, we’ve seen enough situations and enough sports over the years. I don’t make any assumptions about anything at this point in time. And I don’t say that because I’m smarter than anyone else. It’s just I’ve seen a lot of things go very differently from how I expected them to whether I’m talking about from a media standpoint, or just observing as a fan, right over the course of my, you know, 35 ish years that I can remember consuming sports, you know, as a 41 year old at this point. So, you know, we’re going to see how that plays out. But again, for me, I keep coming back to that, you know, threshold word in terms of the Ravens here, what are you waiting for? What are you trying to see? What, what’s going to happen? How are you going to proceed? How are you going to comment about this at the combine? Up everything. What’s the Combine date at the end of the month? I mean, like, yeah, we’re talking, you know, next week coming up here in the next Yeah, so, so, you know, we’re, we should hear something soon. Now, I’m not, I’m guessing it’s going to be short and, you know, and May, and maybe the, maybe the, the idea is you’re going to announce it right before then. I

Nestor Aparicio 38:53

don’t look at that Ronnie Stanley thing. Isn’t that something? Hey, Lamar throwing the ball. Well, this off season, oh, you know he and they’re playing catch, yeah? Anything like that going on yet, they’re gonna be doing all that though, soon.

Luke Jones 39:03

So, so, I mean, it’s just, it’s, yeah, it’s a story that is now close to three weeks old, and you know, the with the new reporting that came out Sunday morning, that’s the number, the number of the accused have gone or the accusers have gone up. But beyond that, we’re still in the same holding pattern. And again, at this point in time. I mean, I saw Mike Freeman. I saw, you know, national reporters kind of saying, you know, the silence is deafening from the Ravens right now. So well, this is where we plug

Nestor Aparicio 39:36

the wnst text service, right? And say, if you text 410-821-9678, you just text wnst Or join to that number. You get on it the minute there is any word. We get it out first, right? Yeah,

Luke Jones 39:47

yeah. And, you know, I think waiting to see what’s going to happen with this, and you know who’s going to be kicking for the ravens, and how are they going to proceed, and what’s the timeline and what’s going to happen with Justin Tucker. Still, still a lot of questions. But you know, the story, you know, if waited out was the approach here, Sunday morning was a reminder that, no, it’s not going away.

Nestor Aparicio 40:10

Well, I still ate some more farms chicken over the weekend, and I would implore all of you to do the same. He is Luke Jones. He’s Baltimore, Luke. You can find him anywhere. The internet is served 10s of 1000s, millions of you find us every year like it’s insane. We have a new media kit out. I hope everybody sees it, reads it. I want to share it out in social media, because Luke and I have worked very, very hard over the last decade and a half to earn your trust and your attention and your phone number on the tech service and your email when we’ve emailed you and your support when I dropped off 144.8 pounds. I actually wrote that wrong. I wrote one 14.8 my wife’s like, No, it was 144 you get the math right over to Catonsville emergency assistance. So big thanks to everybody that supported a cup of soup or bowl all the great stories from last week. I feel a little remiss. We’re gonna get back down to faith these on March 6, I had a couple of police officers doing this thing called Preparing youth for tomorrow. Great, great guys. So I’m looking forward to getting Derek out and his troops on the sixth of March, also our friends at American Cancer Society in the Hope Lodge. We’re going to get them back next month. But in the meantime, enjoy all the conversations. They’re all up our wise conversations up on the front of Baltimore. Positive. Gonna be a long week around here as we get ready for baseball, football spring training, and I just hope Adley rutschman hits the baseball. I’m Nestor. He’s Luke. We are W NSD. Am 1570 Towson, Baltimore, and we never stop talking Baltimore. Positive. You.